Pat Robertson's Gift to the Chavez Propagandists

August 25, 2005 | Is this the end for Pat Robertson? Despite our
sincere wishes to the contrary, probably not. After all, this is a
person that still has a significant platform, despite comments like "feminism
encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice
witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians", and, even more bizarrely, "Presbyterians are the spirit of the Antichrist" (who knew?).

His immediate impulse is toward cowardly dishonesty, as was made
clear by his first response to the outcry over his Chavez assassination
remarks. Fox news reports:

"'I
didn't say "assassination,"' Robertson clarified during a broadcast of
his 'The 700 Club' Wednesday morning. 'I said our special forces should
go "take him out," and "take him out" could be a number of things,
including kidnapping.'

"He blamed The Associated Press for making him seem to advocate the assassination of a foreign leader.

"'There are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power
besides killing him,' Robertson said. 'I was misinterpreted by the AP,
but that happens all the time.'"

"'You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination,
but if he thinks we are trying to assassinate him, we should go ahead
and do it,' Robertson said Monday. 'It's a whole lot easier than
starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.'"

Mr.
Robertson is, in short, an opportunistic liar - a perpetual
embarrassment to thinking Americans on the (broadly defined) right and
their supporters everywhere. Which is, of course, precisely why this
story has received so much play. By casting Robertson as someone with "close links to the White House" - as AndrewBuncombedid in yesterday's Independent

- the left-wing press is able to implicitly project Robertson's
comments onto the Administration (despite direct disavowal of the
remarks by the Departments of State and Defense).

So Mr. Robertson has served the purpose of the Guardian/Independent
media sector nicely, again providing them with the opportunity to
embarrass "conservatives" generally, linked as we are to the likes of
the televangelist and his supporters by tenuous agreement in one or two
areas (but much more substantially in the eyes of many members of the
public at large). He won't mind, of course - such contretemps simply strengthen his position as far as his audience is concerned, and his agenda also benefits.

Not only has the affair provided the opportunity for much leftie
sneering, two days has proved more than adequate time for the
composition of glowing propaganda profiles of Mr. Chavez - samples may
be seen in both the Independent and Guardian today.

In the Indy, Johann Hari's completely uncritical piece paints a picture of the Venezuelan leader as being rather like Christ Himself, bringing hope to the hopeless and restoring the eyesight of the blind:

"It
is easy to see why the people of the barrios support Chavez so
passionately: I visited dozens of the 'missions' built by Chavez that
provide health and education for the poor, in some places for the first
time. The Miracle Mission, for example, provides cataract operations,
restoring the sight of poor people who have been blind for decades.
They would have never seen again under the opposition's vision of
slashed public spending and oil revenues directed once again to the
rich. If democracy was destroyed, these missions - the lifelines for
the barrios - would soon disappear."

Meanwhile, in the Guardian, erstwhile KGB "agent of influence" Richard Gott takes a similarly objective view.
Mr. Robertson's outburst conveniently provides an opportunity for the
former Soviet spy to expound a favourite theme most recently presented
just this May, when he wrote (also in the Guardian):

"The
chrysalis of the Venezuelan revolution led by Chávez, often attacked
and derided as the incoherent vision of an authoritarian leader, has
finally emerged as a resplendent butterfly whose image and example will
radiate for decades to come."